Diagnosis
By
Jacki
ref:
March 98 Heroinsight
The phone rang at 11.30pm.
Mum!
Dad! I'm in hospital! Can you come? They're holding
me here! They won't let me out! Get away, you bastard!
Dad!
Yes!
Yes, we'll come!
Dad!
I don't think you will be able to find me. Let go
of me! Get out!
The
voice was desperate, frightened, alone.
We
rushed to the hospital casualty.
Your
daughter has had an overdose. We are keeping here
in for the night. No, you can't see her yet. Someone's
with her. Perhaps in an hour.
An
hour! What was wrong? What had happened? Who was
with her? These and hundreds of questions raced
through my mind. I tried to talk to the doctor who
had admitted her.
Please
can I see her? I begged. Can I stay with her? Please,
doctor! Can't I go to her? Why can't I see her?
Her phone call had said five people had held her
down, that she had been injected.
Just
then a body bag was wheeled out in front of me,
round to the back of casualty. Is that my daughter?
I cried frantically. Is that her?
Just
sit down, Madam! This is casualty, not a hotel!
Is
that my daughter? Is that person anything to do
with me?
No,
Madam! Just go and sit down!
In
that five second I aged ten or twenty years. A lifetime.
I
stayed that night, sleeping on the floor of her
room, only too glad to be allowed to stay with her.
They were very kind.
She
was raving. LSD, amphetamines, Speed, alcohol and
three nights without sleep; weeping and septic sores
on her feet from dancing all night and delirious,
demented with the overdose. A bad trip. A cocktail
of a lifetime, except she could be dead.
Diagnosis:
drug induced psychosis
By
some miracle she saw a drug and alcohol counsellor
the following day, along with psychiatrists who
maintained they could not hold her. Who could? We
haven't been able to. I watch. I wait. I long for
things to change. But only I can change. Only I
can change myself. The powerlessness to intervene,
to change the course of things compels me to reach
out, to act, to say something. Yes, I am changing.
